Sleepwalker's Conviction
2017 small repress. "Sleepwalker's Conviction documents a 2014 performance by Oren Ambarchi in collaboration with a 20-piece ensemble conducted by Ilan Volkov and featuring members of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Speak Percussion. Foregoing the rhythmic propulsion and distortion-saturated harmonics that have featured in much of Ambarchi's recent work, the LP's single 40-minute piece inhabits a hushed, almost static space of extended tones, percussive shimmer, and creaking strings. Rat…
Godbear
Limited repress. "The first vinyl release of Charlemagne Palestine's Godbear, a 1987 solo piano recording originally scheduled to sit alongside Sonic Youth and Swans in the catalogue of Glenn Branca's Neutral Records but eventually released on CD by the Dutch Barooni label in 1998. Although Palestine has worked in an enormous variety of media, his long form performances for solo piano are perhaps his most acclaimed works. Palestine immersed himself in the study of overtones throughout the 1960s,…
Oz Waves
Efficient Space continue to expose Australia's esoteric musical history with Oz Waves - a collection of '80s DIY recordings, compiled by odd wave anthropologist Steele Bonus. Definitive proof that inhabitants of the Down Underground were links in a global network of creative kooks, Oz Waves connects those who utilized mobile recording rigs and small press releases to create and disseminate misfit synth-punk, tape loop experiments, and inner city pop. Through overseas mail order exchanges, ano…
Gerry & The Holograms
Well–documented as one of Frank Zappa’s favourite ever groups and instantly recognisable as the BLUEprint of 80’s Mancunian electro pop, the inflated alter–egos of Gerry & The Holograms (and their unrivalled brand of conceptual sarcastic synth pop) successfully remodelled, ridiculed and redefined plugged–in punk before hitting the self–destruct button and burying the evidence under a pile of hand–mutilated microgrooves for over 35 wet summers.
Having risen from the electronic embers of Manchest…
Drumbar And Basspear
Free-rock cosmic feedback by way of acid folk explorations. This feels like a classic Westcoast styled psych version of Amon Düül II. 70 copies.
La Casa Encendida
Live collaboration by My Cat Is An Alien and Nad Spiro with an introductory note by Mk Ibañez. Unfolding galaxies of shooting stars slowed down to my speed. Another blast from the alien void. 100 copies.
On Your Own Day You Are Believed
These recordings have the same classic private press vibe that permeates records as Terry Rojvi, Jim Collins, etc. Magical potion concocted by this Maine troubadour, channeling the elemental spirits towards inner light. 70 copies.
Three Pieces for Two Pianos
This album exemplifies the depth to which Larry Polansky (b. 1954) explores and connects different musical ideas: In Three Pieces for Two Pianos and Old Paint, mathematical models and algorithmic processes are used to set folk songs; in k-toods, simple text scores outline complex musical processes that Polansky has theorized extensively; and the Dismissions are culminations of lifelong musicological investigations. His unique compositional style is unified through diversity and a constant reexam…
His First Steps
180-gram red/green coloured LP in deluxe heavy-duty sleeve. Numbered edition of 300 copies. Previously unreleased album by German trio Sand, recorded in 1972. His First Steps is a forerunner of Golem (ROTOR 006CD/LP/BLU-LP/PIC-LP), the legendary 1974 album from the cosmic and psychedelic genius that is Sand. After the split of P.O.T., the early Sand submerged as a threesome in the basement of Claudiusstrasse and built up an alchemical assembling shop, where they resurrected the archetypical Gole…
Piano Music Of The Near East
Modern Silence present a reissue of Piano Music Of The Near East, originally released in 1963. This stunning 20th-century piano music was inspired by national traditions but uses the language and form of Western music. Features pieces by: Manolis Kalomiri, Paul Ben-Haim, Ilhan Mimaroglu, Andre Amine Hossein, Anis Fuleihan, and Amiran Rigai. All works played on piano by Amiran Rigai. From the original liner notes: "In the countries of the Near East, as in any other country where occidental cultur…
Long Distance Operators
Long Distance Operators is a collaboration between the Australian musician Hugo Race and the Belgian violinist Catherine Graindorge. Hugo Race is a singer, songwriter, producer, and author, who has a long and wide-ranging history, from the trans-global Dirtmusic and his groups True Spirit and Fatalists, to his origins in the '80s Melbourne post-punk scene with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and The Wreckery. Catherine Graindorge is a Belgian violinist, composer, and actress, known for her work with t…
Angels And Daemons At Play
Angels And Daemons At Play is the fourth installment in the ongoing Motorpsycho luxury box-set reissue program. While almost every Motorpsycho release is, in one way or another, a step forward, backwards, sideways, or most often everything at once, Angels And Daemons At Play, originally released in 1997, is probably their first coming-of-age album. Following on the heels of 1995's more streamlined Blissard (RACD 110CD), AADAP is the typically stubborn response from a band refusing to be categ…
Landscapes
"A carefully thought out, simple, clean but rich performance using really almost nothing, just a turntable, teach yourself foreign language LP’s, the impeccable timing of a percussionist, and an idea. With the intense focus of a scientist fed up with pointless repetition, Pascal Le Gall takes a scalpel to composition, improvisation and performance, and (with the most basic means) examines their sameness, and their miniscule but important differences. A riveting public dissection, his performance…
Acoustic Solo Percussion 1-4 & Remixes
The double-CD contains all the pieces of the acoustic solo percussion vol. 1-4 series on the first CD and Remixes by Rashad Becker, Hans Joachim Irmler (faust), Joke Lanz (sudden infant) and Günter Müller on the second CD.
Divus
Divus is a duo from Rome, comprised of electronic musician Luciano Lamanna (Lunar Lodge, Balance, LSWHR) and saxophone player Luca T. Mai (Zu, Mombu). The encounter of Lamanna and Mai is suprisingly far from their usual sound. Their influences coming from techno and jazzcore/metal are both left aside here, in favour of a more nocturnal and atmospheric sound. The use of synthesisers is sober and it’s accompained by long sustained notes from the saxophone. The music is so smokey and dark…
Rurale
Rurale is the second chapter of Cristian Naldi’s solo project. Cristian Naldi is an italian guitarist, graduated from the Conservatory "Frescobaldi” in Ferrara in jazz guitar, who's behind the six strings for the impro-drone project FulKanelli, the "gentlemen punk band" Ronin and the ensemble Byzantium Experimental Orchestra. He also shares with Giovanni Lami the electroacoustic project Mise En Abyme. Rurale is the second chapter of Cristian Naldi’s solo project. Original…
Musique Action Internationale 85
A nice adjunct to the trio of M.I.M.I. Festival LP documents that I recently shared, the particular shindig that this compendium commemorates corralled together a curious and disparate cast of characters from the worlds of R.I.O. and improv, and if the resulting artifact is sometimes scattershot, it's never less than amiably so. From my vantage point, the clear standouts here are David Thomas And The Pedestrians' ramshackle reading of Whale Head King, whose personnel goes unlisted here (u…
Un Giorno in una Piazza del Mediterraneo
In the late 70’s the Italian music scene recorded a renewed interest in a sound research involved to a stimulating fusion of popular elements, jazz improvisation and suggestions of the middle-oriental classical heritage. Starting from the experience of Aktuala the idea of a common "Mediterranean air", that could compare and harmonize rhythms and timbres of various regions, enlivened a large number of musicians.
In this context, it also placed the short history of Zeit and of his main mem…
Il Cerchio degli Antichi Colori
With their second album of 1981, the ensemble Zeit re-propose their own vision of a new cultural multi-geographical mosaic without boundaries. The sound confirms the inspired and eclectic vein of previous work suggesting even a greater conviction and maturity of intent. The arrangements tend to dilate in more alchemical and hypnotic sequences, while the range of inspirations (Balkan music, Greek, Turkish, Persian, African etc.) and the poly-instrumentalism are even more precious and varied. Dec…
1972 Blues Jazz Session
Unreleased recordings of future members of Aktuala and I.P. Son Group! The history takes us back in the alternative Milan of the early 70’s, to the flavour of the first jam-blues of that era when musicians from different parts of the world (India, Africa or South-America), of disparate background and culture were used to gather to experiment just with an authentic sense of stay together. Here, the devotion to the blues roots remains strong but leaks in the compositions an aerial and wandering c…